DuckDrams

The day before I enjoyed being driven to Islay rum, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, and Kilchoman. Now was my turn to drive the car. With every intention of doing so legally and competently, that meant no whisky for this old boy. Fortunately, distilleries usually have small sample bottles so that drivers can get takeaway drams. Little did I know that I would return to the hostel no less than 17 samples richer…

Tour at Ardnahoe ending at the whisky bar

At the top of the itinerary was a tour of Ardnahoe distillery. Founded in 2019, it has only recently finished maturing its first batch of new make into whisky. But none has been released to retail yet, and may not be for many more years.

The company behind the distillery is Hunter Laing & Co, a split-off from Douglas Laing, both family-owned independent bottlers represented by each of two brothers and their respective progeny. While the distillery shop had no Ardnahoe whisky to display or sell, there were a variety of HL indie bottlings at quite decent prices.

For the tour we split up into two groups. My group received a nice, if not remarkable tour. The other group was shown around by one of the Laing youngsters – I don’t know if that made for added value or not. The most memorable aspect of the tour for me was certainly the still room, with a minimalistic, clean interior design and big windows onto an astonishing view of the sound of Islay, the straight between Islay and Jura. The tour ended with a wee tasting, where we could each choose between a bottled samples of Highland journey or Islay journey blended malts (I pocketed the latter).

We then had plenty of time to hang around the café / bar – and this bar really sets the bar high! It was stocked with many dozens of Hunter Laing’s own independent bottlings, sold by the dram at eminently affordable prices: much of the Hepburn’s choice range was £3.50 a dram, Old Malt Cask range £5 or £7.50 for quite well-aged stuff. The lovely ladies of the bar were happy to take my order of a fistful of drams and fill them into small hand-labelled sample bottles supplied at no extra charge. A few of my dram choices were not available at all, but I had plenty of replacement options. Twice they ran into the shop to grab a new bottle to fulfil my order. As others caught on to my idea of ordering samples the bar got quite busy! But they were happy to serve and we were happy to receive. In the end I spent £45.50, but that included a rare sample of 26yo Littlemill (a closed distillery) for £15, besides Auchroisk 24yo, Deanston 23yo, Tamdhu 20yo, Balmenach 13yo, Tamdhu 10yo, and Mortlach 10yo.

Bunnahabhain tour

Bunnahabh… Bunhabhanin… Bunnhbha– well, Boonahaaven is a distillery close to my heart. It’s the definite exception to the rule that Islay is synonymous with peated whisky. I was therefore happy that we had both a tour and a tasting (=takeaway driver’s dram) scheduled here. Again we split in to two group, with my left behind in the shop for 20 min while the others got a head start with the tour. Sadly (for everyone who wasn’t driving anyways) one wasn’t allowed to try any whisky before the tour, because of the risk that the alcohol might tip one over the edge of sanity to take a swim in a washback or something. So we waited.

The tour, when it eventually started, was a good one. I learned that Bunnahabhain once upon a time (pre-1960s was it?) used to be peated, but was ordered to switch to non-peaty production to be a blend-filler for the Cutty Sark brand, as an alternative to becoming mothballed due to poor finances. In recent decades however, Bunna is again on the map as a quality single malt. It’s current owner, South African Distell is right now in the process of a merger with Heineken, whose interest seemed more to be in the former’s wine portfolio, though. We’ll see how this new ownership impacts Bunna in the long run.

Quickie at Caol Ila

We just popped by to see if there was a distillery exclusive (there was) at an attractive price (there was not), and just to check the distillery from the list of visited distilleries. The gangway was cool, though.

Smelling the seaweed at Laphroaig

LAPHROAIG – iconic building, iconic whisky. We stopped here to smell the seaweed in the air as we ate our packed lunches. No tour or tasting, but a bar with some single casks whiskies left over from warehouse tastings. I was told by Panda that in previous years the deluxe tours were quite something and involved pulling on wellies and heading out to dig some peat. My visit to Le Frog was brief as I was the driver on a secret mission…

Bowmore and secret cake mission

With Andy’s birthday being on the return day of the trip, a secret mission group had been formed to prepare some celebrations for the day before our departure. Looking online we had found just one bakery on Islay (aptly named the Islay Bakery) and from there we had ordered cake for 18 people. While the majority of WOLS headed to Bowmore in the minibus, I first drove the car with two fellow conspirators to the bakery to get the cake. Thereafter we had but a little time to catch up at Bowmore. I got my driver’s dram sample, and ordered four more samples to take away (see upcoming reviews), increasing my pile of samples by +4. Ka-ching!

The driver gets his reward

After a day of service to humanity, I could park the car away and have some drams – and cake!

Dram tally, day 3

26. Ardnahoe wash
27. Glen Elgin 11yoBryan’s private cask
28. Auchentoshan 13yo Old Malt Cask
29. Secret Isaly 10yo MoM
30. Bunnahabhain random sample 1
31. Bunnahabhain random sample 2
32. Bunnahabhain random sample 3
33. Port Charlotte RSV:02